Madama Butterfly

Premiere at La Monnaie de Munt on Tuesday, 31 January, 8 pm

After staging Rachmaninov’s three short operas under the common title, Rachmaninov Troika, at La Monnaie, Brussels, in 2015, Hotel Pro Forma got a new opera assignment for the same opera house: Madama Butterfly by Puccini.

Madama Butterfly is known and beloved in the classic opera world. A new interpretation must be found. In Hotel Pro Forma’s staging, Madama Butterfly becomes a ghost story with the Japanese geisha Cio-Cio-San as an old ghost, a storyteller who has to tell her tale over and over.

The singer telling the story sings from the proscenium, while a life size puppet on stage creates a mute construction of her short life. With the puppet’s opportunity of creating stylized expression of emotions and the pure musical performance of the narrating voice, the story’s emotional layers are enhanced.

Other parts of the story’s underlying tones are made visible when black ninjas become threatening ancestors, and when ominous phenomena pop up. Madame Butterfly’s death cannot be changed, but the story takes another twist at the end.

“The most beautiful Butterfly I have ever seen.”
“The balance is perfect between text, music and staging. Each of these three aspects is at its best level, without taking the advantage on the others. This is a really wonderful and powerful performance!”

“In your staging, the tragedy comes alive and is not a relic from the old days. Thereby, the theme gets a contemporary resonance.”

“After this, I will never watch a conventional version of Madama Butterfly again.”